The Hollywood Box Office, 2020-2023: How Did Hollywood's Revenue Fare Over the Period as a Whole?

I recently wrote about the box office of 2023 as, if entailing a measure of improvement over the preceding year, still leaving Hollywood, in spite of a full slate of movies and generally "normalized" behavior among the public, grossing less than two-thirds of the pre-pandemic norm (64 percent of the 2015-2019 average).

How does that leave the four years of the 2020-2023 period as a whole looking next to those which came before? Consider the figures for the four years below--the current dollar figures presented first, the inflation-adjusted (for 2023 dollars) figures in the parentheses after.

2020--$2.114 billion ($2.489 billion)

2021--$4.483 billion ($5.041 billion)

2022--$7.37 billion ($7.674 billion)

2023--$8.906 billion ($8.906 billion)

The grosses over the four years come to $24 billion--as against the $56 billion the box office could have been expected to amass had grosses simply continued in line with the 2015-2019 average ($14 billion a year), a shortfall of almost three-fifths. One may add that these troubles have been compounded by comparable shortfalls in the overseas markets, in part because the same dynamics are at work there, but also because that key foreign market, China, has been less receptive to American product. (Consider how in 2019 Marvel's three movies released in China made just a little under $1 billion, while its three releases in 2023 made just a little over $140 million, less than by far the lowest-performing of the 2019 releases managed all by itself, even before we bring inflation into the picture.*)

Meanwhile the problems raised by the shortfall in revenues is compounded by the way in which the disruptions of production and release by the pandemic (and the higher interest rates affecting all business) ran up costs, all as the studios were sitting on a mountain of debt amassed during their insane binge on streaming content.

Of course, the business press point outs that some of the studios, at least, have been making an effort to get their financial houses in order (Warner Discovery's paying down of its debt much discussed in particular). Still, it looks like a long road to anyplace desirable from this standpoint--with the difficulties projected for 2024 (a year in which even Establishment analysts think the box office gross may be even lower than it was in 2023), and the inertia of the studios with regard to practice even as their longtime model for generating hits collapses (the superhero film looking like the old-time musical, etc.), not making that road any shorter or easier.

* In 2019 Avengers: Endgame pulled in $614 million, Spider-Man: Far From Home $199 million, Captain Marvel $154 million. By contrast Guardians of the Galaxy 3 made just $87 million, Ant-Man 3 $39 million, Captain Marvel 2 $15 million (a 90 percent drop relative to the original)--again, all before inflation is factored in.